eitam

In the top 5 most boring Williams scores

Its all fun and games now, but remember your enthusiasm for this when you read the following blurb next year.  "Due to overseas conducting commitments, Williams had to pass on scoring Spielberg's highly anticipated new UFO movie.  Spielberg admitted that he was disappointed but looks forward to working with Zimmer for the first time."   

He did literally say "I don't particularly want to do films anymore" but I think as it turns out, the word "particularly" was doing a lot of work when he said that. With the various qualifying statements he's given since, it's more accurate to say film scoring as a whole is not a priority.
 
But he's also admitted to being protective and jealous about his film legacy, saying some version of "I did it because I didn't want anybody else doing it" about multiple projects now. And even though he can come off ambivalent and not-quite-kidding when he says stuff like "Steven expects me to work til I'm 100," he's obviously sentimental and proud about that. They are married after all. 

Love it! This score deserves some attention! Although it'll be harder to unravel its mysteries than most, given what's available to us.
 
Wow the italics are even showing up in the thread url. Never seen that before.
 
 

Sadly I'm not yet at the point where I can just laugh about this. 

Sadly I'm not yet at the point where I can just laugh about this. 

Sadly I'm not yet at the point where I can just laugh about this. 

Sadly I'm not yet at the point where I can just laugh about this. 

They're glorified cinemagoing experiences, nothing more. Takes all the life out of a proper concert.

Wow, thanks everyone!  Obviously, the most important question to address is how I got those italics. Simple! https://lingojam.com/FacebookFonts 

As for the timeframe: I have over a year to hand in the finished manuscript, but my goal is to have it completed well before that. It's a big book, and publishing is a very slow process. But everything so far is proceeding as I have forseen...
 
It's not a guide to the scores really, but something more holistic, with each chapter looking at cues from all three trilogies from some angle: musical referentiality, thematic transformation, concert arrangements, and so on. There will be a ton of music examples (all my own annotated transcriptions as usu.), hopefully presented in an accessible way that draws in people who can't read sheet music. I know notation and music-theory jargon can be intimidating, and I'm hyper-aware of the potential gatekeeping effect it could on an already niche readership. But at the same time, I think we can all agree this music warrants deep and serious analysis! It's a balancing act for sure... 
 
Alas, I don't have special access to recordings, and can't speak to official expanded album releases, as amazing as they would be! 
 
Incidentally: I don't see it trumpeted nearly enough on these boards but Chloé Huvet came out with a book on SW music (mainly the OT and PT) a couple years ago that is absolutely brilliant and similarly synthetic in approach. The book is in French, which limits the audience, but it's worth getting your hands on if only for the fantastic music examples and charts.  The amount of insight in her prose is incredible too, and it's been a major source of inspriation to me. 

The happy news I cryptically alluded to last week is now something I can make official: I just signed a book contract with OUP for 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘬𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴!   It's a book it feels like I've been writing in my head for a long, long time -- since middle school, kinda? And unless Williams somehow returns to write another entry in the series, I'm treating it a chance to provide a properly 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤 investigation into these scores, all nine of them.   Even Rise of Skywalker?? 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 Rise of Skywalker!   My hope is this book does some justice to the complexity, challenge, and sheer magic of this music.   Now, back to the grindstone!   https://www.facebook.com/Falstaft/posts/pfbid0L6wUjeDDxj6AmhwHh1f9obrVMJfYbPx4GJM8YaEWiZtqxwp37A88monPFVDxBQ26l  
Congratulations, @Falstaft!

I love his work too, thank you @Thorfor the tip about his new album !
 
To the ones you've already mentionned, I'll add Silence Night and Dream, and 10 Pieces for orchestra (both non film). 

I love his work too, thank you @Thorfor the tip about his new album !
 
To the ones you've already mentionned, I'll add Silence Night and Dream, and 10 Pieces for orchestra (both non film). 

Amazingly, I couldn't find a previous thread for this composer, who is my 5th favourite of all time, and IMO the greatest European film composer currently living and working in Europe.
 
Anyways, he has a new non-film album out today, but apparently it's only available on his own streaming platform. Haven't seen it so far on Spotify or YouTube, for example. Maybe later. But from the samples, it sounds gorgeous!

https://store.preisner.com/melancholy

Of course. My John Williams fandom will never die. Even not counting all the mysterious music that has never been heard, there is a ton of Williams music already available I still have yet to hear, or I'm unfamiliar with having only listened once or twice. I've already had the experience many times of scores I think I know well but I hear cues with new ears that never quite registered before. That will continue. But there ain't no Williams score like a new Williams score, no matter where it ranks!

"People ask about a legacy, I don't think about [that] very much - I think I'm much too young to think about such things" - John Williams

Emanuel Ax's lawyer has raised the pressure after sending Christmas cookies didn't show any effect.

Aaaaw, sorry to hear it. But he was in a very frail state last time I saw him, so I knew he didn't have long. It's somehow comforting to know that he and Williams managed to meet one last time, when he did the concerts in Japan last year.
 

Something something but they're all dead.

JWFan was born 25 years ago today! 
 
Hard to imagine back then that the site would still be up and running two and a half decades later, let alone that the Maestro would still be active after having composed nearly thirty more film scores and a similar number of concert works, as well as conducting over 200 concerts including Vienna, Berlin, Milan and Japan!
 
Dozens of his film scores have received perfect releases during all this time, providing fans with the confidence that many more will come in the future, while maintaining and further enhancing the collective appreciation and admiration for the music we all love and which will remain with us for the rest of our lives.
 
The analysis and discussion of his work has reached such level of comprehensiveness and detail, that our forums have become an essential reference for fans and scholars, while fomenting the creation of fascinating projects that expand and deepen the study of the Maestro’s oeuvre and contribute to increasing its appreciation by future generations who, without doubt, will continue to ensure that his name is in the place it deserves in the history of music and cinema.
 
Thank you, Mr. Williams, and thanks to all those who have contributed during this time to make the site such a wonderful place. Here’s to 25 more!
 
PS. The following quoted post, written for this thread 10 years ago, provides a short summary of the origins of the site:
 
 
 

JWFan is obviously biased but calling Reddit "more objective" is laughable. I think there's probably some autopilot factor in the voting but I'm certain the Academy composers could explain why they voted for Dial of Destiny better than r/movies could why he didn't deserve it. 
 
It's a double-edged sword because yes, Williams does get nominated for almost anything, but it also doesn't really happen with many other people. There are only a handful of figures who are that beloved and respected by their peers that they really will get singled out even if the movie around them isn't great. I know a lot of people think Williams is overrated, or Meryl Streep. I'm sure even some fashionistas have a bizarre axe to grind against Edith Head. But you do kinda have to have a certain something that can overlap skilled craftspeople with different tastes and fixations about their art, and Williams does have that. 
 
I think implying he gets nominated year after year after year just off his greatest hits reputation is the same fallacy as when people assume somebody who just died is about to sweep awards season. It's very rare. It's a lot of people voting, the work does need to have something to it. What else actually is out there like "Helena's Theme" right now? I suppose somebody could argue "Well if it wasn't by John Williams nobody would care" but I think if Michael Giacchino had written it, Reddit would be way more likely to cream their jeans over it and screaming that he equalled John Williams's Indy scores. While I think the more open-minded JWFanners among us would still be impressed with it, but would push back against the idea that it's as good as Williams's best work....which is how we mostly feel about it now. 
 
Now whether Giacchino would have gotten the Oscar nomination in a parallel universe where he wrote Williams's Dial of Destiny score, I don't think so. But I think there'd be perfectly reasonable arguing he'd have deserved it. 

The nominations are always more fun than the winners 
 
I'm seeing people more annoyed with Williams this year than usual  I do think there was a lot of hope Joe Hisaishi could have gotten his first which would have been great. I really, really thought this was gonna be a skip year but truly very little can get in the way of JW and his Original Score parking spot. 

Right after the photo John Williams lunged for JJ Abrams in a rage

I support the petition as it is, but I think a higher priority are the prequels. Not having the music (or at best, cobbled together from video games) is a more problematic case than wanting a remaster of a score where 90 something % of the music is there.